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Gravy for the Prisoners

I wouldn’t try to capture iton the page, or in a blog, the inauspiciousleavings of a day. Closer to dreamthan the hum of streets, and peoplewho once walked along them.

Yeah, I know. Know what I’m saying?The grounds were ultimately too large for the compound.A tree takes flight, and patterns are coaxedinto recurring on adjacent walls,out of thin air.No such titan ever visitedduring my days as aedile. Yet wispsstill buttonhole us in random moats:Was it this you were expecting,and if not, why not?

John Ashbery began publishing poetry in The New Yorker in 1972. He is the author of, most recently, “Breezeway.”